According to a recently released poll, conducted by Associated Press-GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media, actually found that an astonishing 32% of those surveyed are confident that they are secure in their jobs.

How can anyone today feel safe? Many industries — automobile manufacturing, media, the retail sector, financial services and construction to name a few — are in free fall. And now even technology giants such as National Semiconductor and Dell have begun laying people off. So has that symbol of all symbols, Microsoft, which recently announced the first major layoff in the company’s history.

And it all trickles down. As computer programmers cut back on their lattes, Starbucks workers lose their jobs. And as taxes shrink, governments contract, which means that tiny branches of local libraries are laying off people too — despite the fact that, in many communities, libraries have emerged as gathering spots for unemployed people of all ages and at all stages in their careers.

The official U.S. unemployment rate is 7.6% and growing, and the actual rate is probably closer to 14% if you include people so discouraged that they’ve quit looking or taken part-time jobs because that’s all they could find. Other surveys have found that most Americans have friends or family members who have been laid off in the last six months. So it’s hard to look at the one-third of Americans who remain optimistic and not conclude they’re nuts.

In the global marketplace, mass firings have become the knee-jerk reaction to whatever bad news comes along. As defined by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a mass layoff occurs when at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance are filed by the former employees of a single establishment during a five-week period. During December 2008 alone, there were, by those standards, 2,275 mass-layoff “events” nationwide, down slightly from November’s record high of 2,333. As a point of comparison, there were “just” 1,352 mass layoffs in November 2007 and 1,469 the following month.

The bureau also reports on what it calls “extended” mass layoffs, which is what happens when private-sector nonfarm employers report that 50 or more employees have remained out of work for at least 31 days. During the fourth quarter of 2008, 3,140 extended mass layoffs left 508,859 people “separated” from their jobs. The construction and manufacturing sectors hit highs for extended mass layoffs, and so did eight states, including California.